alunsina

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

On the narrative of hopelessness at the end of the world

I always question why I chose to study literature as a “minor” instead of math. Whenever this question arises, I am reminded of my Filipino teacher’s words back in Senior High School: “Naniniwala ako na ang tao ay ginawa para maging malalim, hindi mababaw.” (I believe that people are made to be deep, not shallow)

And it is this quote that both hindered and empowered me to put my heart on my sleeve.

First, it hindered me from speaking because it always put me in an endless cycle of “am I thinking deeply enough?”. I’m always confronted with the fear that I’m missing a crucial detail, or my thoughts about this is too vague (especially when you’re stumped with an impostor syndrome at a cutthroat university), or that there is a greater framework to these things which I am not aware about. No amount of JSTOR or T&F would help, it felt like they were only stepping stones that I can use to build ideas on top of one another. But the question doesn’t silence itself: to what extent?

But then it was always what put me in trouble. You’re too serious to answer this question. You don’t need to think too much about it. You’re too smart that’s why you can’t understand how to be with others anymore. Those words put me at risk, because when I am thinking and sharing deeply, I am able to be true to myself. Forcing me to water down my thoughts is masking me for who I truly am. The horrors of unconformity will always be there, and even though you recognize and identify that fear, study all the self-help books to guide you on your next step, everything would be easier said than done.

Everything I do always ends up as a half-baked decision. I’ve tried to argue with myself by saying that “you’re just a person who goes with the wind” or “you can’t be caged” for all my indecisiveness.

And on these trying times where we face narratives of fear and hopelessness left and right, my indecisive mind would not move my feet.

It takes a lot of knowing what it means to be human in order to conquer those fears. But once we wake up to our ephemeral nature, we see that a narrative of hopelessness is also what it means to be fully human. Why? Because hopelessness share the same ephemeral nature as man. But to recognize that and still be willing to take a step forward takes a lot of humanity out of each human being to find our buoy in this sea of hopelessness.

I am reminded that we are made to be deep, but surviving in depths we are yet to unfold require us to keep our minds afloat even when we reach to the bottom of the ocean. So that when we turn again to reach the surface, we breath a new breath and be ready to face the depths again.

[sapphire-san-deactivated2022031]

Hak admiring Yona

Chapter 47

Chapter 76

Chapter 123

Chapter 131

Chapter 152

Chapter 153

Chapter 163

[kuro-21-blog]

“Years after years, life goes on. But we all interact with each other in the end. We will all die in the end, from immortal or mortal. That’s what makes us humans after all. We must protect our fragile little world, even if it’s cruel and merciless.” - Unknown 

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

Oh good lord, I’m oversaturated with AtLA content everywhere I go.

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

Everyone watching snk and tg: LEVI ACKERMAN! KANEKI KEN!

Me: JEAN KIRSTEIN! AMON KOTAROU!

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

peak royai trash moment 👆

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

SnK on its final arc after seven long years. :(

[captainberserk]

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

I will do anything for you too, Black Hayate <3

[bokumetsu]

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

I’ll do anything for you, Roy Mustang my love <3

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

Avidly reading literary works helps me find the flaws in our easily swayed emotions and sentiments (and why we occur at these) and keenly reading financial help books helps me find the ways in which we could live by these flaws by minimising risks and having healthy appetites, be it in financial positions or relationships.

By having a diverse reading list, I found myself growing and understanding my human side. I learn to accept it, live by it, and enjoy life with forgiveness, acceptance, and safety.

Please read books. I know it might be boring and taxing, given our selection of netfilx films and social media sets, but the depth and complexity of analyses that long written works offer are worth it! The wisdom it leaves us compounds our growth and knowledge over time. :)

[andallshallbewell]

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

Not sure if these are artificial blue but I love blue peonies ✨

[velvetmotel-deactivated20211005]

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul… A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”

––– Sydney Carton {A Tale of Two Cities}

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

Aslan has been with the CS community for many years now. Ate Sam would recount how Aslan has already been a friend to our profs when they we’re still undergrad students. 

Aslan’s role in my life is short-lived and pretty passive, but she was present at nights when I’m crying my hearts out at CS lib or when I just finished a rigorous study session. She reminds me of the Virgos in my life, and maybe Aslan is the Virgoest friend I had.

Thank you Aslan! Enjoy cat heaven!

[fallstopieces]

My Dearest Allie. I couldn’t sleep last night because I know that it’s over between us. I’m not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I’ll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I’ll be seeing you. Noah.

[buzzfeeduk]

The Most Heartbreakingly Beautiful Lines In Literature

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

Beauty

When I was in Grade 3, I remember liking Shugo Chara so much. It was this shoujo anime about a cool girl who just wanted to be her true self and ended up having these shugo charas which will help her. I remember the feeling of wanting it all for myself, as if anyone else liking it is trespassing into my territory, to the point where I had an enemy in elementary just because we had the same interest.

I found something so beautiful that I put myself on a high pedestal because there is an apparent need for superiority that only I should possess that beauty. Maybe this is why we pick flowers, we want to possess that beauty for ourselves and bring it with us even though we know all too well that it will not grow in our stead.

Funny how we have flower shops and Dangwa, where they sell all these beautiful flowers. They’re pretty, we think, but how about when we arrive at the inevitable truth that these flowers are meant to wilt? Why are we buying death wrapped in petals and fragrances? Funny how we even give these to loved ones in hospitals, a place for life to thrive and be preserved.

If we find beauty in this manner, we will know soon that this encounter with beauty is short-lived. No matter how many times we claim it for ourselves, it never stays. It becomes a weapon, one which we openly cling to, because of its rarity. We commodify it immensely, giving birth to  unnecessary consumerism, be it fast fashion or media trends. 

Once again I remembered The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. It was an art class discussion. I recall how the spuns of gold, amber, and emerald captivated me and I wanted to share it with my beloved. “This is me. This is what I think a kiss is. And I want to share it with you.” It didn’t happen. I wasn’t able to share that until now, but I remember how it felt. It was liberating to see such a beautiful thing. The feeling of selfishness wasn’t there; rather, there was calmness as I had that communication between the kissing lovers and me. It becomes my own, and it owns me as well. Beauty, or the sought of it, is freedom. Our limitation as man contradicts this selfishness because we can never own the beauty that we find and expect it to live forever when we keep it to ourselves. Beauty becomes our cages, thus a symbol for the human limitation.

Classics are called classics because they have survived the tests of time and are still relevant until the present. When we think of the most beautiful works, they are considered classics because they survived the tests of time, even though the people who looked at it centuries ago have long perished. It connects us to our collective sentiment as humans, no matter the time and place; thus, reminding us of our this limitation and how we can be free from it. Breaking time and boundaries, because it was a beauty that was true to its nature of providing liberation.

The flower, therefore, lives when we know that there are roots that liberate them from limitation and we allow it to grow by not indulging in our selfishness. We exult in beauty for it becomes a reminder of perpetuity.

[twelve-thirtyeightam]

Today, I am once again reminded that literature is not a mere body of written works; rather, it is a celebration of humanity, be it bliss or damnation.

Tonight I also found the answers to the thesis of love that I’ve been looking for since February, a month where love was locked up in helium balloons, pesticide-worn roses, and all sorts of red chocolates. The nature of love, when true to its form, should be set free. In our native tongue, mapagpalaya.

The dust of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is still all over my mind. It tells the letters of a young homosexual Vietnamese immigrant to his mom. Vuong starts his stories from truth, his experiences as a Hartford county boy, to arrive at prose encompassing the collective human sentiments about grief, despair, desire, and surrender. My bottled up emotions are crystallized in these letters which, like Vuong’s, could never arrive at their destination.

We are enchanted with the promises of love when it means holding hands under starry nights and support messages exchanged between lovers, but are those the only ways in which we could arrive at love? When we commodify love in these neat boxes, we often lose sight of love for what it really is: over-abundant. There is no single truth about love, in the words of Lynne Segal.

This is how Little Dog and Trevor arrived at love even though it wasn’t how it is convetionally celebrated. For Little Dog, he understood that being a doorway is what you do when someone sees you after years of being told not to be seen. Do you neglect the love that he encountered because it failed at self-preservation? Is Little Dog’s encounter with love unripe because it wasn’t fully reciprocated? To cage love in conventions is to clip its wings and lock them in cramped spaces, and weaponize this cage to see ourselves arrive at what we think is love. Now we have to deal with this plague in an age where we try to make do with the feathers which has fallen outside this cage.